mother may i?

"Oh mother dear
don't let them shoot my kite down..."
-Nick Heyward, Kite

It's taken me a while to write this post, partially because I couldn't think of too many examples to support my small rant, which we will jump into in a second.  Secondly, I could sense the backlash I'd probably unleash by being so trivial.  I wanted to continue to breakdown my family situation, which started with my last post, siblinguistics.  That one covered my sister, and I wanted to swing through the other branches of my family tree eventually covering my mom and dad.  But, as I started writing, I realized I really had no right to be complaining about these people.  My sister was a different story, as she never took care of me or tried to be involved in my life in any capacity.  My parents, however, took great care of me and any complaints I'd express would seem petty in comparison to the comfortable lifestyle I have.  Then, I realized that I am petty.  I complain.  It's what I do.  It's what I'm good at.  And just because I complain doesn't mean I don't realize how fortunate I am.  I can disagree with something without rejecting it, can appreciate something without accepting it.  I've spent too long feeling too guilty for the things I've felt and I can't do that anymore, something I've summed up as my paper cut philosophy, which I have covered extensively in this blog.  Yes, I'm privileged.  But privilege does not denote perfection.

Out of everyone in my family, I am probably closest with my mom.  But it doesn't mean that our relationship is that great.  While we are usually good overall, it's also often strained.  My mother is an extremely controlling, demanding woman.  She controls mine and my dad's money, food, and many times, our emotions.  When I was younger, I was never allowed to be too emotional.  If I ever laughed too much or was too hyper, like any kid is prone to do, I was reprimanded for acting childish.  If I was ever sad or upset about something, I was chastised for being weak.  There was never sympathy for any of the tough situations I found myself in.  Instead of a soothing word, my mother always countered my complaints with, "Why didn't you stand up for yourself?  Why did you take that from them?  Why didn't you do X, Y and Z to remedy the situation?"  Maybe because I was never reassured of my worth.  I was always picked apart rather than built up to be a confident.  And God forbid I ever got angry with my mother because it only made things worse.  I could never express any kind of hurt or sadness toward her because she made it seem like I was accusing her of being the worst mother in the world.  I never said that, nor thought that, but she tended to blow things out of proportion.  So, I learned to keep my feelings to myself.  It wasn't worth adding any more strife to the swirl of negative emotions that spun in my head.  And while it might not seem like that big of a deal, it definitely didn't help my emotional development, especially in the area of expression.  I learned to channel a lot of that negative energy through art, and eventually, writing.  But when it comes to people, I tend to either keep too much to myself or spill too much.

My mother is old school.  She's also small-minded and set in her ways.  It's hard being a progressive young man in such a repressive household.  She never liked the way I dressed.  She didn't like that I owned hair gel or had more than one pair of shoes.  She didn't like that I was more of an indoors person than outdoors.  She wanted me to ride a bike outside while I wanted to draw inside.  She didn't approve of my taste in clothing, music, friends, television and especially not my choice for college or career.

I needed to express myself, to get out of my redneck town.  I needed to be artistic, to create beauty and inspire and entertain.  My mother wanted me to draw blueprints for houses and company buildings.  I was not feeling that and never even considered it, much to my mother's disappointment.  No, I needed to break away, to do something bigger than I had ever done before, something more grand than myself, contribute art and culture and perhaps a message to the world.

But even a state away, my mother's reach managed to choke me.  She constantly asked if I had done my laundry, if I had finished my homework and went to bed at a decent hour.  She queried about the last time I vacuumed my room or took out the trash and if I had once washed a dish.  She didn't have to ask if I had purchased groceries because she had access to my bank account and made sure to tell me I was spending too much money.

I always had the impression that she thought I was immature and irresponsible.  Maybe I am to some degree but I am also responsible when I need to be.  I managed to make it through three years of college without starving or having the Center for Disease Control inspect my dorm room.  Oh, and I graduated Cum Laude.  I created a short film.  I was published in the college's literary journal.  And when I went back to work, I was put in charge of an entire department before being promoted to supervisor.  I don't have any illegitimate children running around, never been in trouble with the law and floss daily.  All in all, I think I'm a pretty damn good kid.  But my mother doesn't acknowledge those things.  She only chooses to criticize, nitpick and whittle away my accomplishments by pointing out inconsequential things I don't do to her satisfaction, such as the cleanliness of my room or the fact that I don't work enough hours at my job, which is out of my control anyway.

It seems silly for me to get upset over her acidic appraisal of my everyday life, but it all adds up, every judgment, every shake of her head or squint of her eyes.  It's the paper cut again.  It's that subtle chipping away at my self-esteem, an almost unconscious act of antagonizing me until I feel wrecked and unworthy.  It's the fact that she questions everything I do, wear, purchase.  It's the fact that she can't simple praise me for anything without throwing her own assessments into the mix.  It's the fact that she only sees my art as a money making business and not something I just enjoy.  It's the fact that she has never asked to read anything I've ever written.  It's because there's never been support of my decisions or my lifestyle, only reluctant acceptance.  And it feels like I've been living my life up against a wall, constantly pushing forward and feeling nothing but resistance.

But my mother is not a bad woman.  She is a hard worker, a good friend and a generous provider.  She has always paid for just about anything I've ever wanted, and will probably continue to do so as long as I have a need.  But being a monetary mama doesn't always ease the pain.  She took care of me how she knew to, in her own way, no matter how misguided she might have been.  But, isn't that all parents?  She did what she could with what she had and maybe by the time I came around, she was just tired.  She had already had eight hard years with my troublesome sister before I came along and since I wasn't necessarily planned, my parents probably just went with the wind when it came to raising me.  My mother soothed me with food instead of hugs, but she probably didn't know any better.  It worked and she stuck with it, never foreseeing the future damage she'd inflict.  She bought me coloring books and crayons and video games.  But she missed out on actually nurturing me and my talent, never went out of her way to make me feel special.  She often dismissed my drawings with an insincere "very good" before returning to her cooking.  But this was never intentional.  She was distracted, exhausted.  Once, when I was older, I confronted her with her incessant criticisms and she responded by saying she only said those things to help me, not to hurt me.  Obviously, she thought she was teaching me to be a better person but it backfired.  She was was unknowingly making me feel I was weak and unfit for independence.

It's always been a bit of a struggle to please my mother.  I often avoided situations that might have been fun or beneficial just so I wouldn't have to endure another disapproving look or icy silence.  I often asked her permission to do things in lieu of independent decision making.  It was always just easier to pacify her.  But I felt I was never able to grow up because I was confined by my mother's cold critiques.  How could I feel ready to step out into the world when she didn't think I could make up my own bed?  How could I grow up when my mom coddled me and then complained about it?  Hm, complaining.  I guess I got that from her, too.  I guess I have a lot in common with her.  Not only do we have the same hair, skin, teeth and eyes but the same mentality as well.  And it's slightly disconcerting as there are so many things about her I don't agree with.  And I realize the things I don't care about her are some of the same things I don't care about myself.  The impatience.  The quick temper.  The feeling of restless dissatisfaction.  What is it they say, you can't love anyone until you love yourself?  I suppose the same goes for acceptance.  My mother is not just a mom, but a person.  A human.  Fallible.  Loving.  Tired.  She is just another person, not a miracle mother, but no one's mother is.  And I have to accept that.

I'm sure parenting is harder than I could ever imagine and children, and people in general, no matter the age, are so susceptible to insecurity that the slightest word or action or inaction could create chaos within one's self, could screw someone up for life.  My mom wasn't highly educated, isn't incredibly worldly and doesn't have a great grasp of sensitivity.  And it's not really her fault.  Like I said, she's not a bad woman.  We do have our good times.  We laugh and when something excites me, I still want to tell her about it.  As much as I feel I missed out on integral part of growing up, becoming an adult, becoming well adjusted, I can't put all the blame on my mother and even if she was partly responsible, I should be old enough now to be able to change things, to at least make an effort to undo some of the damage.  And realize that she will never stop reviewing my life, lining up my accomplishments and blasting them away with her own input.  That's just something I have to not take so seriously, not have to internalize the way I do.  And as much as she might point out my shortcomings, as you can see, I point out hers as well.  I'm no better, really.  I am my mother's son. 

siblinguistics

"Brothers and sisters are as close as hands and feet."

-Vietnamese Proverb

After being screwed over by my sister several months ago, I had a lot of bitterness toward her.  It kind of disgusted me how she didn't want her own brother in her home.  I wasn't asking to live there, just to stay for a while so I could try to find a decent job that would allow me to move out of our parents' home so I could start my own life.  I suppose I was asking too much, however, because she acted like I was the biggest inconvenience the whole time I was there.

I tried to stay out of her way but when we found ourselves in the same area together, she interrogated me over my daily doings, asking me how many applications I sent in, inquiring as to how many resumes I printed out, how many newspapers I bought or how many malls I visited to ask if they were hiring.  Plus, she felt the need to push jobs on me that I had no interest in.  Here she was, working a job she hated, and thought it was necessary to make me do the same.  That's one characteristic she inherited from Mom.  As if her pestering me wasn't bad enough, I was driving to an interview one day when Mom called and told me my sister didn't even want me to come to her house.  Mom got the call from my sister just as I was pulling out of my driveway to go see her.  Mom said she started to call me and tell me to turn around.  I wish she would have.  It would have saved me some anguish.

I've never been close with my sister.  I believe it has something to do with our large age gap and the fact that she's probably a bigger cynic than I am, if you can believe that.  But I can't seem to shake this latest incident, can't seem to wrap my feeble mind around her complete lack of sympathy for my situation.  It's not like I was asking to move in.  It's not like I was planning on eating all of her groceries or throwing my dirty underwear on the living room floor.  I was just needing a place to stay for a maximum of two weeks until I could find a job and an apartment.  It wasn't too much to ask, at least I thought.  But, for my sister, I might as well have asked her to walk a tightrope over piranha infested waters.  It was insulting and hurtful because I'm family and I always hoped, despite us not being close, that she would help me out when I was in need.  Sure, she did, but she did so reluctantly and then treated me like a cockroach that came out at night to nibble on the dirty dishes left in the sink.  

When I was little, I adored my sister.  Perhaps that's where some of her annoyance with me came from.  Sure, I can understand having some little rugrat clinging onto your leg might grate on a gal's nerves after a while, but I wonder if she ever wondered why I was under her so much.  Did she ever realize how cool I thought she was, how I was proud that she was my sister, how I thought she was the neatest thing since Crayola?  As I grew older, I hoped that my burgeoning maturity would somehow soften her revulsion of me.  I hoped that as I became an adult, we could be more adult toward each other, see each other as somewhat equals, instead of a idealized big sister and a nerdy little brother.  Besides, she introduced me to art and horror movies when I was little, two things I still crave to this day.  I hoped we'd make a connection over those things.  I suppose we did, for a few Christmases.  But that connection wasn't strong enough to maintain through multiple holidays.  Even as I started to understand who I was as a person, as I began exploring myself and why I was who I was, as I stopped caring about being the cool guy for everyone else, I still felt vulnerable around her, inadequate.  I still saw myself as that clueless little boy who clung to his sister.  I think she still saw me that way, too.

I never knew how to talk to my sister because I never really knew who she was.  She moved out soon after I hit my teenage years, when I started becoming aware of myself and my surroundings.  I never got to know her past the sisterly image I had constructed in my small, impressionable mind.  She never got to know me past my little boy annoyance.  And when we'd see each other again for the holidays, it was always awkward.  We couldn't carry a conversation past book or movie recommendations and her horror stories about work.  It's not that I didn't try but it always felt forced when I asked her questions, like it was more of an interview than a relationship.

I love my sister because she's family, but I don't really like her.  She has a terrible attitude and doesn't give anything potentially good a chance.  She's cold to those around her, even her husband.  And after the way she treated me, I'm just kind of over her.  She came over the other day to take care of some business in town and stayed here overnight.  I hadn't seen her since Easter and I was okay with that.  While she was over, I stayed in my room the entire time, not going out of my way to ignore her but I didn't make any effort to socialize.  Mom pointed that out to me after my sister left.

"You acted like you had nothing to do with her," Mom said.

"Well, I didn't mean to."

"You just stayed in your room the whole time."

"I always stay in my room."

"Well, you could have came out and visited."

"Sorry."

"You still mad at her?"

And that was where I became annoyed with my mom.  It felt she was more angry at me for being angry at my sister for being mean to me.  But what about my parents being angry at my sister for being mean to me?  I brought that up and Mom just shrugged it off.

"Oh," she said with a dismissive wave of her hand.  "We were angry and we told her, me and your dad."

Okay, so is that supposed to make me feel better?  You two can be angry and I can't?

"You just need to let it go and move on," Mom said.

But I can't and I won't because it wasn't just some excusably tough time in her life that I happened to step into.  It symbolized how she's always treated me, how she's always seen me as bothersome.  It goes beyond that one incident.  It exemplified our entire relationship and after that, I was done.  My sister and I have never been that close and I am sure we never will be.  And while I get jealous of other strong sibling relationships, I don't feel too bad about the nearly  nonexistent one I have with my sister.  It's really her choice to be the way she is and there's nothing I can do about it.  As much as this might sound terrible to say, I don't consider it that big of a loss.

How do you talk to a sibling?  I understand the parent child relationship, I suppose.  Parents are in charge, to be respected but there's also that small window of mutual friendship that can form as the child grows, matures and becomes a relatable adult.  But when it comes to an older or younger brother or sister, where does each sibling stand?  Are they equal because they are both children of two people who are older?  Or should the older sibling be treated with the same amount of respect and obedience that would be given to a parent?  And as the older sibling, how do you treat your younger brother or sister?  Do you always look down on them as the baby, as the one who took Mommy and Daddy's attention away from you?  Or do you realize that they grow up just like you did, that they are people, too, that they are not the whiny little brats you remember from your own childhood?  Can there be more than a brother sister relationship?  Can there be friendship?  I think so, as long as both are willing.  I just don't think my sister is.  She'll always look down on me just as much as I always looked up to her.  She'll always see me as nothing more than her baby brother, a snot-nosed nuisance. 

And I'll always see her as my big sister, a stranger.  A bitch with my blood.

home to nothing

"Do you do you like dreaming of things
so impossible or only the practical or ever the wild
or waiting through all your bad bad days
just to end them with
someone you care about...?"
-Dashboard Confessional, So Impossible

"What's it going to take to relax you?" she asked.

"Quitting," I thought to myself.  But I told her I wasn't sure.

She looked around the break room, her eyes searching for a solution.

"Do you need to drink a beer?" she blurted out.

Was my gray-haired grandmother with glasses supervisor suggesting that I start drinking?

"Uh, no, I'm not really into that," I said.

"Oh, well it works for me."  My shock deepened.  It was hard enough to imagine her suggesting alcohol to me and even harder for me to imagine her getting off work and cracking a cold one.  "We gotta find you something."

Duh.  If only she knew I've been searching for years for a way to loosen the knot inside myself.  Food had been my main source of soothing but even that wasn't doing the job like it used to.  The only thing I could think of that was relaxing was writing and I hadn't even had much time to do that with my Harry Potter book and movie marathon I had been working my way through during the last three months.  So, I had to wonder: what would relax me, what could I do to calm down?

Naturally, the new position at work totally sucks.  Yeah, I have more responsibilities and get paid more for them but I don't think it's really worth it.  I have a lot of paper work to do on top of still dealing with annoying and smelly customers.  I also have to do schedules and lucky me, I only have two other people in my department, both of which don't want to work.  One lady stepped down from the supervisor position to work part-time in a different department.  The other lady only wants to work at a minimum and only on certain days.  So, that only makes scheduling more complicated.  And the hours are long.  By the time I get home, it's nearly time to go to bed so I can wake up and do it all again the next day.  And the worst part is I feel pretty much trapped.

A couple of days after I accepted the position, I was having severe reservations about my decision.  I talked to the store manager about it, meaning to tell him I had changed my mind but he informed me he had already replaced me with someone else and to back out now would not only inconvenience everyone he had changed around but would also "leave him in a real bind."  Plus, he had hired more people from outside the store to fill in the empty spaces from the associate rearrangement.  So, I'd be basically screwing over a lot of people if I decided to go back to my department.  Obviously, I couldn't do that.  I was tied down.

It sucked seeing everyone else leave at 4:00, while I was trapped there until 5:30.  And as they walked out the door to freedom, I wondered what they went home to.  Most of them have families.  I think out of about forty people that work there, only five or so are single and even the single ones have children or some sort of family they enjoy.  They go home to friends and family and spouses and I go home to nothing.  Just a nagging mother, indifferent father and a cat who craps everywhere.  Nothing like the smell of feline feces to greet me after a long day of dealing with dunces at work.

I know I should be grateful for my parents and in many ways I am.  They definitely provide for me but they mostly provide financially.  And that's about where it stops.  I think a lot of people are under the impression that presence trumps tenderness.  Yes, my parents are around and I appreciate what they do manage to do for me but I also feel they lack in other areas.  My mother is never satisfied with anything I do, leaving me feeling inadequate.  My father doesn't speak to me, which leaves me feeling unwanted.  Sometimes, being there isn't enough.  Sometimes, criticism and lack of interest can be as damaging as absence.

And I think another paper cut is the fact that I even have to come home to my parents at all.  I should be further along than this.  I should be coming home to my significant other rather than an incontinent cat.  At the very least, I should be coming home to a rockin' bachelor pad.  And while I've managed to suppress those kinds of thoughts, it's in the moments of change that the emptiness echoes around me again.  My defenses are down during change.  When my life is stirred up, so are all of my emotions.

A lot of people tell me I'm too high strung, that I should try pot or alcohol or even sex to loosen up.  The only problem is my morals go against all of these solutions.  That's not to say I haven't thought about them before.  And that's not to say that I wouldn't indulge one of these problem-solvers in the future.  But those aren't really the remedies I'm willing to try at this point.  Sure, it would be nice if I could drown out my doldrums by getting drunk or high or even getting laid but I don't know how healthy those options are.  I've already ruined my body by treating my temperament with Twinkies.  I don't need to become addicted to meth or contract syphilis on top of my other physical defects.  Of course, I'm exaggerating but with my previous history of making my life (and death) so much worse, I wouldn't put a little venereal disease out of the realm of possibility.

STDs aside, I surely wouldn't mind coming home to someone at night, someone who would make me forget about my troubles at work.  And I think that's what most of my coworkers don't understand.  They have that comfort factor, that sense of relief, not grief, from their loved ones when they get off work.  But as for me, I don't feel I have a safety net, no one to calm me down or make me laugh, nothing to ease the tension or smooth out the strain.  I don't have much to look forward to, whether I'm headed home or back to work.    

I just have to wonder if anything will do the job.  I've tried meditation and prayer and none of those techniques feel concrete enough for me to cling to.  I could try pills or liquor but it seems that would only lead to other problems down the road.  And sex would involve the flesh and feelings of someone else and since I don't seem to have my own under control, I'm not sure I'd be able to handle the responsibility of someone else's.  I'm trying to calm myself down, not drum up more discord.

It seems the best course of action would be to exercise.  It's supposed to reduce stress and the waistline but I never felt any better after exercising.  Plus, I'm just too lazy, possibly too far gone to care to change, which is the saddest part of all.  It's just that I have so much going on, so much going wrong, that I wish I could pick apart the problems and take care of them individually.  Unfortunately, the world won't let me take it one gash at a time.  Therefore, it's all too overwhelming to try to tackle so I do what's easiest, which is nothing.  I let it fester, let myself rot more and more each day, and then complain to ease up some of the entropy.  Ultimately, it never gets me anywhere but it does get me by, just like drinking or sex.  Hm, I guess I've always had my own semi-effective soothing mechanism.  So, I guess I don't need the booze or the bodies after all.

I have my own ruminations to keep from unraveling.